


Snow in summer

by ricemai



Category: Nier Gestalt | Nier Replicant | Nier (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27362635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ricemai/pseuds/ricemai
Summary: A fairytale retelling of the prologue from Yonah's perspective
Kudos: 1





	Snow in summer

**Author's Note:**

> This features brother Nier! Liberties from canon are taken and Yonah is omniscient for aesthetic reasons.

The Shades loomed towards the ruins, adding to the havoc that enveloped the world.

Ash-white, feathery snow scraped across the heavy sky that was supposed to be clear in summer. Moth-like, they fell, against the greasy glass of the cracked windows, floated in clumps over dirty puddles and rusted pipes, slid into the building through gaps between the half collapsed cement walls and drifted in the stale air until some were caught on my numb face.

New cries arose from the Gestalts. Their wretched voices were as dense as their light-stealing eyes. Though my body was numb from the cold, my insides felt as if they were twisted in knots, my chest violently seized by sharp tingling pain. Between the dry heaves and fits that seemed to have lasted an eternity, I saw the first moonrise of my life: my brother's image bloomed in the dim light like a secret flower.

When survivors of the pandemic first witnessed the Gestalt process, Nier was the only one who did not cry.

Legend has it that half a century ago, Prince Caim and his beloved dragon Angelus passed through the door to the realm of the Gods. Exhausted by Mother and shot down by fighter jets, their bodies impaled, the magic dissolved into a million black scrawls; though it was summer, when they died, it snowed: every flake was a feather, every feather was limned in pale chlorine.

As I laid gagging on the cold floor, Grimoire Noir's voice echoed in my head.

"Yonah, you are going to die."

I turned seven in that cold, cold summer. Even before the Grimoire had spoken, my brother had known the truth. Even before he touched upon the white tome of darkness, his eyes had already sunken into gloom. At sixteen years of age, he had seen in the empty eye sockets of the corpses, in these remnants of humanity, the cruelest ending possible. Even before we ran away from Project Gestalt, we were already wandering through this fallen land like a pair of invisible ghosts. Alone in an extinguished universe that had failed him over and over, Nier cut his own heart open; love poured out from it, bright, fresh; and so he died. Though I had understood this most impossible love in the world, little did I know, when I answered the Grimoire's calling, he would suffer as a shapeless wraith who carries the weight of the whole world for over a thousand years more.

My brother’s Grimoire began to sing in this snowstorm of ash and sorrows. Blood-soaked lances shot up from the snow-laden earth, the Shades writhing in their death throes. In hoards, they gathered and perished under the Grimoire's hex; its aura hung over Nier’s lithe frame like dark crimson wings. Though Gestalts were no longer corporeal, like humans they bled, their grief a dark stain melting into the ashen moonlight. Winds seemed to rise from the ground where I laid as my fingers etched upon the black book that was calling my name. Ringings in my ears grew deafeningly loud and drowned out the Gestalts’ harrowing cries, just like the endless night drowned in my brother's beautiful, bottomless eyes.

I had been a foolish child.

Even if it was something so simple, even if all I wanted was for us to share a cookie, I was driven by a terrible, single-minded resolve. I touched the Grimoire. I could not bear the burden of the suffering of others. I failed Nier once and again as the world did. My body jerked forward in a fit and finally; he cried, crane-like, the saddest sound on earth that would echo in my thousand-year dream. Darkness crawled upon my skin and flesh, like ants upon flowering vines.

Sometimes, in my heart, I knew something to be true, even if it was wrong. As long as Nier had love in this world, he never had to amount to anything. In the thousand years that would be laid within his unchanging soul, moonlight shall shine over the forgotten earth, secret flowers shall bloom long after humanity perishes, the river of time shall flow. My brother shall have finally earned his rest, because silence is the reward for those who had chosen love over everything else. In that way, I could console myself with the greater good, even if it was one I could not understand.


End file.
